The present invention relates to a printer for printing, preferably by thermal transfer, deformable flat supports, such as cards, in particular of plastic material, of the type comprising, from upstream to downstream, a loader for the supports to be printed, adapted to coact with an outlet drive element for the supports from the loader of the type constituted by a cylinder in contact with the supports to be printed by means of an opening provided in a wall of the loader, a printing device and transfer means delimiting a series of zones of grasping forming a transport path to lead sequentially the printed supports from the outlet of the rotor to the printing device and from the printing device toward collection means for the printed supports, said collection means being disposed below the loader, as well as a loader for a printer of the mentioned type.
Printers for printing deformable flat supports are well known to those skilled in this art. There can be distinguished two large groups of printers. The first group concerns printers in which the loader and the collection pack are disposed at opposite ends of the frame of the printer.
The second printing group concerns printers in which the collection device and the loader are disposed on a same side of the printer. There results less size of the printer. However, until now, in this type of arrangement, the support to be printed is introduced from the loader into the first gripping region of the transport path of the printer in a horizontal plane parallel to the transport plane. Once the support is printed, this support is removed from the first gripping region by means of transfer means disposed within the printer, then guided to the printer outlet to be transferred to the collection bin. By virtue of its design, size, in particular its height, the printer remains relatively large. Moreover, the fact of deforming the support that has been printed can be prejudicial to the card at the printer outlet. Finally, the guidance at the printer outlet which takes place solely by means of stationary guides, is in a certain number of cases hardly desirable.
An object of the present invention is to provide a printer of a new type in which the design of the loader and of the transport path of the printer have been modified for, on the one hand, reducing the total size of the printer, on the other hand to improve the guidance of the support to be printed in the course of the phases of entry of the support into the printer and the support leaving this same printer.
To this end, the invention has for its object a printer for the printing, preferably by heat thermal transfer, of deformable flat supports, such as cards, in particular of plastic material, of the type comprising, from upstream to downstream, a loader for the supports to be printed, adapted to coact with a drive element at the outlet for the supports from the loader, of the type constituted by a cylinder in contact with the supports to be printed, through an opening provided in a wall of the loader, a printing device and transfer means delimiting a series of gripping regions forming a transport path to lead sequentially the printed supports from the outlet of the loader to the printing device and from the printing device to the collection means for the printed supports, said collection means being disposed below the loader, characterized in that at least a part of the wall with an opening, of the loader, positioned adjacent the outlet of the loader, is inclined at a positive angle relative to the transport path to give to the support to be printed, at the outlet of the loader, an inclination such that the support and the transport path form, adjacent the inlet of the first gripping region of the transport path, an obtuse angle, the inlet of the first gripping region of the transport path being provided with a deflector oriented on the one hand in the direction of the first gripping region to bring the support which strikes it into a tangential position in the first gripping zone of the transport path, on the other hand toward the collection receptacle to permit evacuation by simple gravity of the printed support into the collection receptacle.
The invention also has for its object a loader for a printer, characterized in that it has at least one inclined wall.